


A Million Yesterdays

by nevercomestheday



Category: American Actor RPF, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live RPF, US Comedians RPF
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Break Up, Comedy RPF, Crying, Death, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Drunkenness, Emotional, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, I Am Chris Farley, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Inspired by Real Events, Interviews, Long, M/M, Memories, Men Crying, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Slash, RPF, References to Addiction, References to Drugs, Slash, Tension, Unresolved Emotional Tension, because i used real quotes, everything is funny and everything hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevercomestheday/pseuds/nevercomestheday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David goes in to shoot I Am Chris Farley, and what he doesn't say says more than what he does, as usual.<br/>Memories come up only to be swallowed back down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Talking About Chris

**Author's Note:**

> This fic could just as well be titled "I Got Major Sparley Feels After Watching I Am Chris Farley," but that just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?  
> This is my first Sparley fic in a little while, and the longest one ever.  
> Seriously. This thing is twenty pages.  
> All the David quotes in the interview are lifted directly from the documentary, but the interviewer questions had to be made up because there weren't any in the film.  
> Enjoy and please comment! Let me know if you liked it! <3

“I'm ready when you are.”

 

The camera stares David square in the face, an angle he still hasn't quite gotten used to, despite the countless interviews over the years. Maybe he's so jarred because he knows this interview, this piece is completely different from anything else he's ever done. They haven't even started filming yet, but it's already the hardest thing he's had to tape in as long as he can remember.

 

This time, he has to talk about Chris.

 

Normally, he can talk about Chris all day, and sometimes, he does, even now. It's just different when he has to talk about him for a camera, and when he has to talk about everything, from the day they met to the worst day of David's life.

He's been drilling for weeks, planning out what he's going to discuss and which stories he'll tell. It's not supposed to be scripted, but it can't hurt to have a plan, right?

 

No amount of preparation could've made him ready for the crushing feeling he'll have to relive when they make him talk about the end.

 

He's decided he won't talk about either “end,” the first end of their relationship or the end of Chris's life, until someone brings it up or asks about it. This isn't really an interview, so there won't be any of those well-worded questions or hinting expressions on picture-perfect interviewer faces, but he knows someone will make him talk about it.

 

This is about Chris's life, after all, and both of those painful things are important parts of it.

 

David just wishes someone else could say it for him.

 

 

It's been almost eighteen years since Chris died, and seventeen since the other end that still haunts David's nightmares. He's sure that even when 30 have passed, he'll still feel that sharp pang in his chest and the twisting in his stomach when he's reminded.

 

It feels like yesterday; it feels like a million yesterdays ago.

 

Someone off-camera asks him to start with the day he met Chris, and a warm smile appears on his face as the memory of that day washes over him.

 

_“How are ya? Chris Farley, Gallagher Tent & Awning,” his voice booms, comically lowered. He flips his hair around a couple of times. _

_The look on his face is one of mock-seriousness, and it soon bursts apart at the seams into a welcoming smile._

_David takes the outreached hand in front of him, feeling the other man nearly rip his arm from his socket in the most enthusiastic handshake he's ever had._

_“Uh, David Spade, nice to meet you.” His shoulder hurts, but suddenly, so do his cheeks. How is he already smiling so wide?_

_The NBC lobby is huge, and there are at least twenty-five people buzzing around this room alone, but David can't hear any of them. He can't see anyone else._

_He's enraptured._

 

“He flips his hair around, which was what I came to know over the years, his standard deep-voice-handshake-meet-guy.”

 

 


	2. He Doesn't Put His Hands Up

They ask him now to talk about how Chris was when he performed, and the smile on David's face widens.

He'd always loved to watch the madness unfold, to watch how someone who rarely prepared and didn't have to try hard at all could execute sketches and characters so flawlessly almost every time.

 

_“Don't worry, Davey, I've got it. I know exactly how I'm gonna do this one.”_

_An eyebrow goes up on David's face, and the look Chris already knows all too well hits him head-on._

_“Come on,” he starts again. “Have I ever been wrong before?”_

_Yes, yes he has, but David just shakes his head and smiles. It's so hard to keep a straight face around Chris._

_As soon as he notices David soften, he slugs him in the shoulder playfully and grins._

 

_Lo and behold, the show rolls around, and David watches from the wings as Chris's Update piece runs through. The crowd is absolutely roaring, eating up every word out of his mouth and every motion of his wildly-flailing arms._

_How does he do it?_

 

_When he comes offstage, forehead glistening and hair mussed, he pulls David into a side-hug._

_“How'd I do, Dave? Was I funny?”_

_Does he really not know? Is he oblivious? How could anyone not see how incredible he did, how incredible he is every night?_

_“You killed, man.”_

 

 

“He doesn't put his hands up, which is what I would do,” David chuckles. “So... He doesn't block his fall.”

 

_David scans the sketch in front of him, the sound of rustling papers echoing through the writer's room. Read-through is chugging along as usual, with Chris seated to his right and a little plate of donuts slowly disappearing in front of them._

_“Okay, so this is Robert Smigel's... Robert, this is another Superfans sketch, correct?” Lorne looks up from his papers and over his glasses to Smigel, who is sitting across the room._

 

_They read through the beginning of the sketch, Lorne filling in for the George Wendt parts._

_Near the end, Chris's character, Todd, is to do a dancing ritual so the Bulls will win their upcoming game. Chris gets up to act the scene out, and near the end, he's supposed to have yet another heart attack and fall over._

_Of course, as David knows, this means Chris will do the full fall right here, on the floor of the conference room._

_The whole room is giggling as he shakes himself around, and when he starts smacking his fist into his chest, David braces himself._

_All he can think is please don't bruise, please don't bruise._

_Chris topples over without a flinch, hitting the ground with a loud thud._

_David looks over his shoulder, panic ready to leap up into his throat. Will this be the time he breaks a rib?_

_Chris leaps back up victoriously, taking a little bow, and no, he hasn't broken anything. The breath David didn't know he was holding is forced out in a relieved chuckle._

_Thank God._

 

“And that's... You can't do those forever. I think Chevy Chase warned him not to do that.”


	3. Puppy Lawyer

“So tell us what it was like writing with Chris. Did he write?”

 

David laughs at the thought. Chris may have tried to write a few times, but he was a performer, first and foremost.

 

“He did try to write one sketch, because he never wrote sketches, and it was called 'Puppy Lawyer.' And it was about fourteen pages and it was horrible and it was too long. At read-through it was dying...”

 

_They're only on page three of- what ridiculous number is it?- fourteen, fourteen pages of the worst thing David has ever watched slowly crash and burn at this table. That's really saying something, since most of David's early sketches were read pretty much DOA._

_The room is deathly silent around the lines of the cast members slated for the monstrosity, broken only by a collective groan of exasperation at the end of every page._

_Puppy Lawyer, it's called, and yes, it's exactly what the title suggests. It's about a lawyer... that's a dog._

_Chris was so proud of it when he wrote it, though, and David would never break his spirit. He almost wishes he had, though, because this might hurt Chris more than a warning yesterday would have._

_Chris is not stupid. He can pick up on the tension._

_He turns to look at David, who is already looking his way._

_“Oh my god, it's dying!” he whispers, making a little gesture of a bomb dropping and exploding on the script. “Bomb!”_

_Chris drops the edge of the paper he'd been crushing and grabs David's shoulder. His bottom lip is in his mouth as his fingers tighten around his friend's arm._

_“David!” he whispers fiercely. “Wha- how am- I'm gonna get in trouble!”_

_Normally, David would focus his attention on the surely bruising spot on his shoulder, but the look in his eyes shifts from mocking to sympathy. Poor Chris never writes anything, and now he'll probably never try again._

_“Relax, you won't get in trouble,” he says softly, patting Chris's still gripping hand. “Trust me, if you didn't get in trouble for that time you broke the office chair, or the time you finished the entire box of donuts, or-”_

_“Cut to the chase!”_

_“This won't kill you, I promise.”_

 

 

“And then, after that, I would say, 'I'm working on Puppy Lawyer. Your honor, arf arf!'”

 


	4. I Just Want to Make You Laugh

It's not long before Matt Foley is brought up, and this is the easiest part. David's talked about this sketch more times than he can count, and it's a fun memory that never seems to get old.

 

“Yeah, it was Christina Applegate, and she was the host... It combined the scratchy voice... he moves his glasses around, can't see, and then grabs his belt. For when he's sideways he crosses his eyes so the audience can't see him try new tricks and just... Ah? _Ah?_ ”

 

_“Hey, Dad, I can't see real good, is that Bill Shakespeare over there?” Chris bellows._

 

_David's face aches under the makeup that didn't have time to come off after the last sketch. He thought this would be easier- they'd done this sketch so many times in rehearsal._

_He should've known by now that no matter what rehearsal was like, no matter how many times he's heard the jokes or seen the performance, Chris is gonna break him in the live show like always._

 

_It's his goal._

 

_He always pulls something out of his pocket at the last minute, some little extra something he's been saving in the back of his mind to surprise everyone._

 

_This time, it's two things- he's hitching his pants up by the belt, and every time he comes up to David and the camera's not on his face, his eyes cross._

_It's too much. David knows he shouldn't laugh, but it's the perfect storm. The eyes, the voice, the pants, the crazy motions, the lines... This laughter is coming up fast from deep in his belly, pushing past his insides and stepping on his reservations._

 

_Every time. Every damn time._

 

_Chris goes to pick him up, and David holds on to him like a magnet- partly because he wants to be close to Chris, as always, but mostly because Chris is flailing him around. Though David knows he'd never drop him, and that in all the times he's shaken and lifted and spun David around, he's never hurt him before, his instinct still kicks in._

 

_“Here's you, here's Matt. There's you, there's-” Chris dives into the table, and though it's not in the script, David reflexively jumps forward to make sure he's all right._

_“Whoops a daisy,” and Chris is totally fine, as usual._

 

“I think just the combo of watching the audience see it for the first time and realizing this is such a funny thing, and we've seen it all week... I started thinking it was funnier again.”

 

_He steps off the stage with Christina Applegate, Phil Hartman, and Julia Sweeney, finding Chris smiling almost painfully wide and waiting with arms outstretched._

_It had been both Chris and David's last sketch of the night, and all that's left now is to watch the musical guest and wait for the goodnights._

_Chris is still in his costume, but his glasses are in his hand. He pulls David into a long, sweaty hug._

_“You're crushing me,” David chokes._

_“I got you!” Chris teases._

_“Yeah, you've got me, now let go before you lose me to the icy grip of death!”_

_He releases his grip, suddenly frightened as though David were serious. “No, Dave, I mean I got you! I broke you!”_

_“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got me, great.” David rolls his eyes, but seeing the look of excitement and pride on Chris's face makes it very hard to maintain his attitude._

_“You laughed! I made you laugh!”_

_“You made the audience laugh, too. You know, like your job is supposed to be. Shouldn't that be your focus?”_

_Chris pats David's shoulder and chuckles. “Davey, I don't care about that. I just want to make you laugh.”_

_Despite every rational impulse in his mind, every little voice and instinct and sensible thought, David looks down at the floor and blushes, a bashful smile crossing his face._

_Damn it._

 

“I was more scared of getting in trouble. I did not want to get yelled at by Lorne, give Lorne one more reason to get rid of me.”

 


	5. Lost Cause

“Tell us a little about Chris's addictions from your perspective. Did you try and stop things, or was it just a lost cause?”

Phrases like “lost cause,” “Chris's demons,” and “didn't you do anything to stop it?” have always made David's stomach turn.

Chris was never a lost cause, even in the end. David always thought he could pull through.

“When he got to SNL, whatever track he was on, as far as, you know, any drinking or anything like that, that was just sort of set in line, so all the wheels were in motion before we got to him, you know.”

 

_“Davey... Pick up your phone, Davey...”_

_David wakes up to the sound of Chris drawling into his answering machine. The clock next to his head flashes 4:30am, and David wishes he could be surprised._

_Chris is still slurring into the receiver when David picks up._

_“Chris, do you have any idea what time it is? Are you drunk?”_

_A hiccup, a giggle, a pause. “Maybe. Davey, I think I need you to pick me up.”_

_At least he isn't trying to stumble home by himself._

_“Where are you?”_

 

_David drives out to some bar downtown. It's a shady, seedy place, which makes sense; nice bars aren't usually open at five in the morning._

_When he finds Chris, he's slumped over in a booth. It looks like he's been crying._

_“Chris?”_

_He opens his eyes and smiles, more tears welling up into his eyes. “Davey! Davey... you came for me...”_

_“Of course I did, man. You okay?” He knows the answer, but what else is there to say right now?_

_“I'm so fucked, Dave. So fucked,” Chris groans._

_“Come on, let's go home.” David doesn't bother asking what he took. He knows this isn't just drunkenness, but he's too scared of what he might hear Chris say._

_“Yeah, okay, sure... Will you come home with me? I don't want... I don't wanna be alone.”_

_Oh God. Oh no. Please no. Of all the things to say, why did it have to be that? David's heart shatters into a million pieces._

_“Of course,” he chokes out. “Of course I'll go with you.”_

 

_They shuffle out of the bar slowly, Chris leaning on David and David surprising even himself with his strength. By the time they walk up the stairs and into the empty little apartment, Chris is crying._

_He's slurring his words too much, and David can't tell what it is he's breaking down about, so he just pats his back and lets Chris moan on his shoulder._

_“Davey, I'm a miserable wreck!” he finally cries as they sit down on the mattress._

_“What?”_

_“I'm a failure! What do I even have to live for?” Chris slumps over onto his side, heaving sobs shaking his whole body._

_David puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, trying very hard not to cry himself._

_“Hey, stop that. You're nowhere near a failure. You're the funniest person I've ever seen in my life!”_

_“You're just saying that. I'm an idiot. And look at me! I'm a fat drunken slob!” The tears are streaming down his face now, and his big blue eyes blaze red._

_“Stop it! You're not an idiot at all! You're insanely talented, you're insanely funny, you're insanely wonderful. You're just going through a rough time. You're a lot stronger than a lot of people I know. You're a lot stronger than I am, even.” David's voice falters towards the end, and Chris grabs his hand and squeezes._

_“Do you really think so?”_

_“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”_

_David's eyes are glued to their hands, but he can feel Chris looking at him. He knows if he looks at Chris's face, he's gonna start crying, but he tears himself away anyway and meets his gaze._

_“I love you so much, Davey. Please don't leave me.”_

_That does it. Soon David's face is wet and his eyes sting, and his bottom lip is shaking. Whatever already broken state his heart was in watching Chris break down is trampled on further, and it feels like a million knives are going through his chest._

_“Please don't leave me,” Chris repeats. “I need you. I don't wanna die alone.”_

_“I love you too, Chris. I'm... I'm not going anywhere. And you're not gonna die. I'm not gonna let you die.” David finds himself squeezing Chris's hand so hard his knuckles go white._

_Still dizzy, Chris pulls himself up and grabs David in a bear hug._

_David just inhales deeply and tries very hard to believe his own words that Chris will pull through this._

 

“It's just hard to deal with, and not everyone's that stable. I'm not, and it's very hard.”


	6. Get So Close

“Keep going about how it was in sketches with him,” one of the producers says. He can clearly see how uncomfortable talking about Chris's addictions has made David.

 

David sighs, relieved.

 

“Sometimes he would headbutt me in sketches, get so close it would throw you off, cause you're like, 'What's going on? You're not supposed to do that.'”

 

_David sits on the couch on set, butterflies swirling through his stomach. This is only Matt Foley's second appearance on SNL, but if this is anything like the last time, Chris is going to break David within about thirty seconds._

_It's the same formula as last time, but with a Halloween theme. Chris comes barreling out the “basement” door, thunderous applause following him to the middle of the stage._

_The part David's been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to most creeps up on him, and Chris inches closer to deliver his lines._

_Rather than just screaming in his ear as they'd rehearsed, Chris puts his face as close to the side of David's as possible._

_“We'll start with you, young man!” he shouts in his low, scratchy character voice. “Now, let me begin with an obvious question: who threw the eggs?!” As he asks it, he leans ever closer, and as the last syllable leaves his lips, he nuzzles his nose into David's ear._

_Any sense of position is shot right out of David's mind. Where is he? What just happened? What's going on? And why did that make him feel so giddy?_

_Thankfully, the lines are on cue cards, and the nervously dizzy chuckle that escapes him fits the next joke well enough._

_“I don't know. But I can tell you what you had for lunch today- a chili dog.” He pauses for the scripted laugh from Christian Slater and Melanie Hutsell, the other two teenagers in the sketch. “No, really, I don't know.”_

 

_The sketch continues, and when Chris has to come back to David and ask him if Christian looks like Bob Hope, he wraps his arm around his shoulder and squeezes him tight, trying almost desperately to get David to look at him so he'll laugh. He does, and it's hard for Chris not to smile._

_Soon after, they come to the part where Chris has to scoop David up once again, only this time, they fall into the coffee table together._

_David isn't scared. He knows Chris won't let him get hurt._

_“_ _So, you had fun? How do you think the eggs felt? Hey, let's find out! I'll be you, and you be the eggs!” He picks David up and grips him tightly, and just as he's always done, David clings like a burr to a sweater._

_His face is pressed right up against Chris's chest, and he can smell his deodorant through his jacket. His heart booms in David's ear, and as woozy as David is getting from being swung around, this isn't quite as bad as it could be._

_They go crashing down onto the breakaway table, Chris landing on his back and David landing on Chris. His wrist gets smushed between Chris and the ground, but he can worry about it later._

_They stay there for a beat, David catching his breath before rolling off of Chris so he can deliver his next line._

 

_The sketch ends with Chris falling backwards through a window, exclaiming, “What are you looking at? I've done my job! If you need me, I'll be extracting glass out of my rear end in a van down by the river!”_

_David just smiles and shakes his head as he watches Chris stumble off set, and the camera pans out and cuts to the band._

 

“So that was funny, and he'd like it, and he'd go, 'I made you laugh!' And he's excited, like a child.”

 

 

 

“This is great, keep going about SNL.”

 

David chuckles to himself. There are about a million things that come to mind, and of those, about 900,000 are things he could never, ever say, especially not in front of a camera.

“We shared an office, ten feet wide, with just two wooden desks. I sat there-” he points to one side of himself- “behind me was him. I had to write my own stuff, which was tough. But he didn't write, or read, or really do anything, but he was funny, and that was more important.”

 

_“Davey... Davey, turn around.” Chris's voice is up in that whimsical, childlike register that only means one thing._

_“I swear, if this is Fat Guy in a Little Coat again, I'm not turning around. It's not funny anymore,” David groans._

_“No, no, it's something totally different! Turn around!”_

_David spins his chair away from the sketch he knows he wasn't going to finish anyway to find Chris wearing his Levi's denim jacket, just barely fitting it over his arms._

_“Fat guy in a little coat! It's funny! Don't you quit on me!” He spins himself around, hands waving in the too-small sleeves._

_David wants to be mad, he really does. But even after a hundred times, it is pretty funny, and even if it had gotten old, the look of enthusiasm on Chris's face never could._

_“All right, all right, it's funny. Now take it off before you split the damn thing.”_

 


	7. Amazing Chemistry

The producer smiles to David. “Tell us a little about _Tommy Boy_. The chemistry between you two was amazing. How did that go?”

 

“It's so great when everyone leaves you alone, we're just trying to-” He shrugs. “'What's the funniest thing we can do here that makes us laugh?'”

 

_Chris slugs David's shoulder excitedly, and then, as though by reflex, pulls him in for a quick squeeze._

_It's almost like he's afraid David will take his punches or jokes seriously, and every time he does, he feels the need to remind him it's all a game, and he really thinks the world of David._

_At least, that's what David always assumes._

_“Okay buddy, you ready to bust these promo photos out?” he asks, tossing the wrapper of a sandwich on a chair next to him._

_David smiles. “Yeah, let's do this.”_

 

_They take a few outside, David posing with his trademark scowl on his face and Chris smiling brightly as usual. No one told them to stand so close, or for Chris to put his arm around David, but by now, it's just their default. Every time they pose for photos anywhere, David stands next to Chris and Chris squeezes David in._

_No complaints from David._

_The next round of photos are in the destroyed car, some driving and some parked. Even while they drive, Chris wraps an arm around David, sometimes pulling him in a bit too hard and shaking him out of his seat._

_Chris is absolutely beaming, and it's hard for David not to do the same._

_Sure, they've been fighting more than usual lately, but at the end of the day, there's no one David would rather be doing this movie with. The squabbling is to be expected anyway- they're together 24/7._

_The “married couple” jokes fly left and right, and for some reason, David doesn't mind them._

_At all._

 

_“So I was thinking,” Chris says later on, mouth full of the quickly-vanishing steak in front of him, “We should put Fat Guy in a Little Coat in the movie.”_

_“What?” David laughs. All he heard was gurgling, “fat,” and “movie.”_

_Chris swallows and tries again. “Fat Guy in a Little Coat!”_

_“Oh man, you've got to give that up,” David chuckles._

_“No, no really! It would fit so well! We're shooting one of the hotel scenes tomorrow, right? Tommy can play with Richard's jacket!”_

_The smile on his face, though flecked with mashed potato and smeared with steak sauce, is just so genuine and innocent and so very excited that David can't help but cave._

_“Okay, we'll bring it up to Fred and the producers tomorrow. But I won't laugh!” He says that, but he's already laughing now._

_“Yay!” Chris claps his hands and takes a sip of his Diet Coke._

_“Actually, we could probably have it split. I'm surprised mine never did,” David says as he pushes his food around his plate._

_“There's still time, Dave.”_


	8. More Than Okay

“Now we're gonna have a bit here about _Black Sheep_ , too. Can you tell us a little about that one?”

 

David sighs. “It was like _Tommy Boy_ , we wanted to get back and do that. He goes, 'That's the one people like, and we should try again.' Fred gave him a rolling down a hill, and he just keeps falling 'cause it gets funnier 'cause it's so stupid.”

 

_David is tired. So, so tired._

_He's sure it comes through the screen, and he's sure his acting is a little sub-par, but he just can't bring himself up anymore._

_The feel is off. The magic is dampened. Something is just not quite there._

_He's not here so much because he wants to be, or because he needs to be. He's making this movie because Chris needs him to, because the poor guy was roped into a contract he doesn't want to be in and wants to give the people more of what they want._

_Chris is still Chris, and David is still David, and they're definitely still Chris and David, Spade and Farley, but this new director who thinks she's hot shit keeps separating them._

_Sure, some of it is Chris wanting to do some more dramatic scenes and get a little more serious, but there's a lot of wandering going on, and David's sure he's not the only one feeling like it's just not working._

 

_Chris comes off the hill, dusty and breathless and probably bruised. Someone shouts, “cut!” and he's running towards David._

_“David!” he shouts, colliding with him at full speed and spinning him around in a bear hug._

_“Chris!” David squeaks._

_“Did you see that? Was I good?” He puts David down and looks right through him, right into his eyes._

_There's the puppy dog face, and David goes to pieces as usual._

_“You're always good,” he says._

_“Nah, come on, really. Was I good? Did I do okay?” His hands are on David's shoulders now, and his eyes look all the more shiny and pleading next to his dirt-coated face and the twigs stuck in his hair._

_“More than okay.”_

 

“He's just very good at anything you give him like that.”


	9. Left Unsaid

They bring up the relapse, and David can feel himself getting sick. He has to talk about it... but did he have to _talk_ about it?

That phrase David hates is back; “did you do anything to stop him?”

 

“But you know, everyone's gonna do what they're gonna do. That's the problem. There's only so much you can do.”

 

_It's been three months, and not so much as a phone call has come through._

_David knows it's okay, he knows Chris doesn't hate him... Right?_

_He hears now and again that Chris is sober, but it's never for very long. Relapse, rehab, relapse, rehab, relapse in rehab, different rehab, it's all so depressing._

_As much as David doesn't want to think about it, it's all he can ever think about, because that's just what happens when you love someone._

_When you love Chris Farley, it's all the more difficult, because he loves you so much, and you love him even more, and the cycle is ever-moving and more painful every time it comes back around._

 

 

_He's in a restaurant at some hotel, and there's Chris. It's both a relief and a horrible, crushing blow._

_When he spots David, he smiles. It's not just any smile, either; it's a genuinely happy, warm, I've-missed-you-so-damn-much smile._

_He's with two giant guys, sobriety bodyguards or something. He taps one on the shoulder, points to David, and says something quietly._

_They let him walk over to David alone._

 

_“Hey, David.”_

_He doesn't allow himself to think of why hearing Chris say his name makes his stomach knot._

_“Hey, Chris. How are you?”_

_“I'm okay. I'm trying really hard to clean up. It's... It's not easy.” His voice is low and uncharacteristically serious._

_“I know.” David bites his lip._

_“Listen, I... I'm sorry.”_

_“I'm sorry too.” Don't get emotional, David. Don't you dare._

_“Do you think... Could we do another movie together? Tommy Boy is all people ever talk about. It's the only one that matters. Can we do another one together? Can we do... something?” His face is pleading, and the words he isn't saying are almost as important as the ones he is._

_“Y-yeah... I'd love to. Of course,” David breathes. He misses him. Chris has missed him all this time, too._

_They're still in public, but Chris puts his hand on David's for a second._

_“Oh, oh good. I... I've missed you.” There it is, out in the open._

_“I've missed you, too.” Still so much is left unsaid, but just the fact that they're saying anything at all is enough to send David's mind in a backspin- a feeling he's missed almost as much as he's missed Chris._

_Chris opens his mouth to say something, but a couple of girls, probably models, walk up to their table._

_They invite him upstairs to party, saying something about Spanish Playboy or some other ridiculous thing, and Chris looks at David._

_Against all his better judgment, David nods._

_“Go ahead. I'll hold the bodyguards off for a minute.”_

_Chris sends a grateful look David's way and takes off with the giggling models, and when the guards come back to David's table to ask where Chris went, he swallows his conscience._

_“He must've gone to the bathroom or something.”_

_He just wants so desperately to make Chris happy, even if it may have been a bad idea. They were having such a moment, and David got swept up in the thought that they could have a moment again at all, and let his fear of ruining that get in the way of Chris's safety._

_It'll be fine, though, because it's not a big hotel, and the bodyguards can find him easily. He's not hard to miss, right?_

 

_But now they can't find him, and David can't finish his dinner._

_Please, please not this. Not now. Not when things are finally starting to get fixed._

_Please don't let this be David's fault._

 

 

 _Less than a month goes by, and Chris is gone. The last relapse did him in, and David is at a rehearsal for_ Just Shoot Me! _when he gets a call._

 

_“I want to tell you because you are going to get hit with all the press in about five minutes,” his manager says, and nothing in the world could make David ready for this._

 

_He hangs up, wordless, numb. He walks back on set and starts to rehearse again, but he stops cold._

_It starts to hit him._

_Chris is dead._

_Everyone is staring at him, but he can't see anything. His eyes brim with tears._

_He drops whatever is in his hand, he doesn't even remember, and breaks into a half-run to the other room._

_He needs to be alone._

_No._

_He needs to be with Chris._

 

_David is crying, he's sobbing, he can't breathe. The walls are closing in around him and the ceiling is tumbling onto his skull._

_What happened to all the air in the room? Did Chris take that, too?_

_Damn it. Damn it all to hell. How could he? How could he just let himself die like that? Didn't he know David needed him?_

_“Fuck!” he cries into the empty room. “How could you? You told me never to leave you, and you go and leave me! How could you?”_

_Another round of heaving sobs comes on, and David struggles to catch his breath._

_“How could I be so fucking stupid? How could I let you go? How could I let you die? I promised! I promised you! I promised not to let you die, and I didn't keep it! God, why? Why did I ever let you go? Fuck!” he screams, punching the door he's glad he closed behind him._

_He sinks to the ground, sliding down the wall. He's given up on wiping the tears from his face. They slide down his cheeks and drop off onto his shirt, and he drops his head back against the wall._

_“I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry...” he whimpers over and over. “Please don't really be gone. This is just a bad dream, it has to be. It's not real, it's not real, it's not real...”_

 

_But it is real, and David shuts down._


	10. Too Much

 “It took months to go, 'Okay, I can talk about this.' Like it just- too much.”

 

_Chris's funeral is today._

_It still doesn't feel real. It can't be._

_David should be in Wisconsin right now, standing in the parking lot of the church hugging Kevin, or Mrs. Farley, or_ someone _, but he's at home, staring at his wall, pretending to be anywhere but here._

 

_“Are you going?” Adam Sandler had asked when they last spoke on the phone._

_“I... I don't know. I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can go there and face everyone, see him in a box...” David's breath had caught there and he didn't finish the thought._

 

_He knows he needs to be there, but if he goes, it becomes real. If he talks about it, it becomes real._

_He's operating on the delusion that Chris is just in rehab, or filming a movie someplace, or that this is just a horrible, drawn-out nightmare he'll wake up from eventually._

 

_Every day is hard._

 

_Every minute is hard._

 

_He knows it's not his fault, but then, no, he doesn't. Things were going to be okay, and he blew it. He told Chris to go with those girls._

_It's David's fault._

_He can't stop telling himself that._

 

_He snaps out of his daze for long enough to get angry again, and he stomps his foot down on the kitchen floor._

_He's afraid it will never get easier._

 

“It comes up in something in my mind every day. And I think it will forever.”

 


	11. Epilogue: Let's Stick Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if you could technically call this an epilogue, because it takes place before the interview, but it isn't really a last chapter or an ending because the interview ends with that last line of chapter ten... I mean, it fits at the end of the story arc and completes the circle, so I'm calling it an epilogue. If I'm wrong, oh well. =P

_David walks into his office and smiles up at the_ Tommy Boy _poster hanging on the wall._

_There's Chris, eternally young, eternally smiling, and eternally holding onto David like he'd fall apart without him._

 

_Little did he know, right?_

 

_The little signature, now faded with the passage of twenty years- has it really been that long?- looks down on David with its warm message._

 

_“David,_

_Let's stick together!_

_Chris Farley”_

 

_He knows if he thinks about it too much, he'll get emotional again, but today, he just can't help it. With the filming of the documentary just ahead, and the movie's anniversary just behind, David can't really stop himself from letting the thoughts parade through his head._

 

_“Let's stick together.”_

 

_Before it can register in his mind, he's bawling. Not just crying, but actually sobbing. Hard._

_It doesn't matter how much time has passed, it doesn't matter what year it is or how much has happened that Chris didn't get to see. It still hurts, and that's all there is to it._

 

_David looks back up at the poster, back at Chris's beaming face and warm hug, and smiles through a shaky breath._

 

_They did have a lot of fun together._

 

_David can remember laughing with Chris more than anything- laughing at jokes he made (at both appropriate and inappropriate times), laughing at stunts he pulled, laughing at nothing at all just because they were together, just because Chris somehow made everything funny._

 

_He remembers staying in one of dozens of hotel rooms together and waking up in the middle of the night to find Chris snoring like a grizzly bear. It annoyed him at the time, but man, is it funny now._

 

 _He remembers outtake after outtake of_ Tommy Boy _, doing and redoing scenes just because one of them broke._

 

_He remembers arguing with Chris over the dumbest shit in the world, things that now, looking back, weren't really worth the shouting._

 

_He remembers late night phone calls and later-night writing together, though they rarely got anything done when Chris would goof off._

 

 _He remembers the wrapping of_ Tommy Boy _, and when they gave everyone on the crew autographed books that Chris “accidentally” gave everyone before David had the chance to sign them too-_

 _“Are these from you_ and _David?”_

_“You know what, sure, they are.”_

 

_He remembers how weird it felt when shooting ended, how strange it suddenly was to not wake up at five in the morning to spend the whole day with Chris, to not go to sleep late at night wondering if he'd ever get that infectious laughter out of his head, how he didn't really believe he wanted to get rid of it._

 

_It's been twenty years since that movie._

 

_It feels like yesterday; it feels like a million yesterdays ago._

 

 


End file.
